Researchers map out Netflix’s servers across the globe

Netflix delivers a lot of video. Now researchers from Queen Mary University of London have mapped out where the servers that send out all of that data are located.

A map of where the study found Netflix servers.

Image: Queen Mary University of London

Last year, the video streaming giant made up 37 percent of internet traffic (with similarnumbers over the past few years), but it’s been (sort of) unclear as to how it delivered that traffic so efficiently.

Five researchers from QMUL’s School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science attempted to figure it out by loading Netflix videos on university computers, localizing the requests to different regions with a browser extension, and then studying the traffic delivered by servers in those areas. Read more…